Search keyword advertisements may be associated with an ad copy. An ad copy may be a few lines of text that are in turn associated with a link to a bidding merchant's website. The performance/effectiveness of an advertisement may often depend on the associated ad copy. The few words comprising an ad copy, such as “Find Amazing Interest Rates & Low Costs—Apply Now for Fast Approval,” may be the subject of substantial thought by copy-writers, who may manually generate the ad copy. Such ad copy, however, are typically selected with little or no empirical basis to predict or validate their effectiveness.
Similar problems are also posed by advertisements present in other media objects, such as television programs and video games. Various aspects of an advertisement in a media object, such as the speed of a car in a television advertisement, and the color of the car, may also require substantial efforts by advertisers, and may also lack an empirical basis for predicting or validating their effectiveness.